Over the last decade there has been dramatically increased growth and interest in the movement of edible perishables by air, not only in the U.S. but worldwide. The World Air Cargo Industry flew an estimated 6 billion pounds of seafood and 19 billion pounds of produce in 1985. Distant access to fresh products for health, taste, and off-season supply are driving forces in the current import/export growth in many countries and will fuel even greater growth of the future.
Fresh edibles marketing has matured more rapidly than the specialized transport structure needed to provide distribution high product quality control. Specialized packaging is either non-existent or woefully inadequate. This unsatisfactory environment creates waste, disenchantment and/or health risk and it works toward destroying markets.
The University of California at Davis estimates that 25% of the world's produce is never eaten, because of inefficient transportation systems between the source and the consumer that results in total loss.
Internally generated research has shown that after a 12 hour air transit cycle, the average product transported in a standard produce pallet as belly freight and inserted at 33 degrees F.-arrived with a core pulp temperature of 63 degrees F. In passenger aircraft, the atmospherics of the cargo areas of the belly consist of recirculated cabin air heated to 72 degrees F. with a very dry relative humidity of 2 percent. This produces a very hostile transportation environment for perishable products, where with increases of heat by degree increments, shelf life diminishes "exponentially". It is therefore desirable to provide longer term insulation protection for temperature sensitive products to shield them from outside influences of heat and cold during shipping. It is also desirable to provide an inexpensive, improvedly strengthened container which has proved insulation protection against the aforementioned adverse conditions.